What does it mean to be a good buyer in 2025?

Video Transcription

Hey friends. Something started to shift in buyer behavior toward the end of 2023 and has continued through all of 24 and into 25. And I want to address it today because I think it’s something that we as business owners and leaders should keep in mind. We all know that the market has been uncertain, unpredictable, unwieldy, all of the things since toward the end of 2023. But what that’s manifesting as now inside of our businesses with that buyer uncertainty and is buyer bad behavior. So today I want to talk with you about what it means to be a good buyer. I’m flipping the script because usually I talk with you about how to market your brand, how to be a good seller of your product or service. But today I want to talk with you about the other side of that coin being the buyer. 

Those of you in my network are generally people with influence and decision making authority. Maybe not all of you have been in a sales role in a professional capacity, but many of you have been. So you’re going to understand and relate to this. I’ve spent the past year and a half, two years talking with other leaders in my network, other CEOs, particularly those in professional services who tend to have a long high trust sales cycle. And here’s what’s changing. Up until 2023, any lead that came in our direction was usually pretty well behaved. We knew that there were the outliers, the, you know, inbound leads that came from a web search that may or may not be qualified. But in professional services, a lot of our leads and opportunities through high trust referral relationships. 

In the past, when those leads and opportunities came to our door, the buyers were always very responsive and clear in their communication and we could predict the outcomes and we had good communication with all of the uncertainty that’s currently in the market. Buyers are now holding their cards really close to their vest and they’re just not speaking with directness and transparency. And often they’re going completely dark. And these are not unqualified, inbound, unknown human leads. These are people with real network connections to our business, really close knit relationships in context to our business. And this isn’t just happening in our business, but the pipeline. Unpredictability is everywhere. 

Salespeople who are investing their valuable time on these sales calls and scopes of work and proposals are suddenly having deals that they’ve qualified and invested all their time in go completely silent with no response. And so I just want to challenge all of you as business leaders and decision makers to think about the golden rule as it applies to business. A vendor, a potential vendor of course, is going to work to give you a positive experience. But your brand reputation personally and professionally is reflected in the way that you engage when you reach out to solicit the time of a potential vendor to invest in understanding your business need and responding to that business need. 

I personally believe you’ve got an obligation in terms of the trust that you carry into the market as a professional and that you represent for your brand to close the loop and be as honest and direct as you can be while you’re considering your options and treat others as you would want to be treated. Because whether you recognize it or not, just like your Uber driver is rating you, and just like the Facebook marketplace sellers are rating you as a buyer, your business network is also rating you as a buyer and you have the opportunity to build trust even if you don’t choose a vendor by being direct and honest and clear so that you are respecting everybody’s time and helping them help you the best that they can. So I just wanted to challenge you with that today. Be a good buyer. 

If you are a business owner, please hold your executives and leaders to the high standard of representing your brand well. By closing the loop with the vendors that they reach out to, soliciting their time and input for your business, it reflects back on your company. So encourage your leaders to be direct with the vendors that they’re engaging and considering and that will boost trust all around in your brand of business. All right, that’s all I’ve got for today. Have a great day, folks.